Court rejects woman's bid to sue club over drink

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The High Court yesterday dismissed an appeal by a woman who sought to sue a club where she had spent most of the day drinking before being hit by a car and badly injured.

Australian Hotels Association chief Brian Kearney said the case, while decided on its merits, seemed to reflect the growing community belief that people needed to take more responsibility for their own behaviour.

The High Court ruled that the South Tweed Heads Rugby League Football Club had not breached any duty of care it owed to the woman, Rosellie Jonnell Cole.

Mrs Cole, aged 45 when the accident happened in mid-1994, went to the club's regular Sunday champagne breakfast between 9.30 and 10am with friends and continued to drink through most of the day. She was asked to leave at 5.30pm, by which time she had to be held up. Just under an hour later she was hit by a car. The court heard the club had not served Mrs Cole after 12.30pm but she continued to consume drinks bought by friends, and that at 3pm the manager's wife refused her service. She had a blood alcohol level of .238.

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The NSW Court of Appeal later found the driver of the car, Angela Jane Lawrence, had not driven negligently. It held that the club owed Mrs Cole only the general duty of care and this did not extend to protecting patrons from the kind of harm she had suffered caused by drunkenness.

Mrs Cole appealed to the High Court, arguing that the club supplied her with drink when a reasonable person would know she was drunk and that it had allowed her to leave in an unsafe condition. But the court heard that when the manager asked Mrs Cole to leave and offered her the club's courtesy bus and a taxi, she swore at him and left with two men who said they would take care of her.

The High Court dismissed her appeal 4-2. It held that an adult in Mrs Cole's position knew the effects and risks of excessive drinking.